Thrills and chills for all ages featuring music from Psycho, Night on Bald Mountain, Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre, and more spooktacular delights. Come in costume if you dare!
Advance tickets start at just $8 - call 269-565-2199 or buy online until 6 pm Friday.
Program Notes
Welcome to the “spooktacular” Legends of Halloween concert by the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra. Whether or not you chose to wear a costume tonight, we hope that you will be in a mood for scary, exciting holiday music.
The concert will open with Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King, which was first composed for Henrik Ibsen’s play, Peer Gynt, in 1876. Later Grieg expanded it into a suite and made Hall of the Mountain King the final piece in the new work. Peer Gynt, a rather conceited, brazen young man, is hiding in a cave in order to avoid the Mountain King. Finally he runs out of the cave, the mountain tumbles to the ground, and Peer escapes successfully.
The music for the shocking 1960 film Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock was composed by Bernard Herrmann, and Hitchcock was so pleased with it that he said "33% of the effect of Psycho was due to the music."
Though Franz Liszt composed four Mephisto Waltzes, the first one, “The Dance in the Village Inn” has been the most popular because it is so voluptuous. It is based on an episode by Lenau’s Faust, During a wedding ceremony, Mephistopheles and Faust intrude. Mephistopheles takes a fiddle from one of the musicians and plays it with passion and seductiveness, while Faust and a beautiful young woman dance off into the woods.
The composition of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain was extremely complicated, and the version by Rimsky-Korsakov, which he himself first conducted after Mussorgsky’s death, was actually the first performance of the work and has remained much more popular than Mussorgsky’s original. In the 20th century, Leopold Stokowski arranged yet another version, which was used in Walt Disney’s famous 1940 film, Fantasia. The theme of the work is the witches’ sabbath, and it has become a popular Halloween-season work.
Camille Saint-Saens’ Dance Macabre started out in 1874 as an art song for voice and piano, but that same year Saint-Saens expanded and modified it, replacing the vocal part with a solo violin. According to legend, “Death” brings dead bodies out from their graves to dance each Halloween while he plays his fiddle. When they hear roosters crow in the early morning, however, they have to return to their graves until the next October . In order to sound more frightening, the devil tunes his E string down one half-step to E flat. Listen particularly for the xylophone, which represents the rattling bones of the dead.
Finally, the orchestra will play movements 1, 4 and 5 of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, which was composed in 1830 and has remained popular ever since. This “program music” symphony tells the story of a gifted artist who takes opium in the “depths of despair,” because of his failed love life. The three movements which the symphony will play are called Visions and Passions, March to the Scaffold, and Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath. It is said that Berlioz composed at least part of this work under the influence of opium. As Leonard Bernstein put it, this was the first psychedelic piece of music. “Berlioz tells it like it is. You take a trip. You wind up screaming at your own funeral.”
We hope that our concert will not only delight and excite you but will also prepare you for a fun-filled Halloween.
Linda Jo Scott, Program Annotator
Symphonic Halloween music has inspired a number of movies and animated films, but this interpretation of Night on Bald Mountain is no doubt the most famous.
Here's for all the Johnny Depp fans - an interpretation of Danse Macabre Tim Burton Style.
We can also walk you through it the first time over the phone if you like. Call us at 269-963-1911 and we'd be glad to help you with your online order or take your ticket in person.
Ticket Exchange
Ticket
exchange--
If
you can't make it to a concert, contact us by 5pm the Friday
before the concert and we’ll (a) exchange your tickets
for tickets to a future concert; or (b)
accept your tickets as a donation and mail you a receipt
for tax purposes.
Find WKKA Auditorium
W.K. Kellogg Auditorium
60 West Van Buren Street
Battle Creek, MI 49017
Direction : Corner of Mc Camly St. & W. Van Buren. Auditorium
is attached to W.K. Kellogg Jr High School. W.K. Kellogg Auditorium
is across from Willard Libary Parking Lot & Clara's Restruant.
Take I-94 to business loop M-66 North Bound. Turn west onto W. Van
Buren approximately 3 blocks.
Mythbusters
Myth #1. Symphony Concerts are not affordable. In fact, you can get tickets for as low as $7 per ticket!
Myth #2. Symphony Concerts are boring. Symphony music is some of the most exciting and dramatic music ever written. That's why so many movie scores are inspired by symphonic classics.
Myth #3. Concerts are stuffy and long. Our typical concerts are less than two hours and have an upbeat, multi-media approach.
Myth #4. You have to wear a suit and a tie to go to a concert. Come as you like. Some folks like to dress up, others prefer a more casual look. Myth #5. You can only applaud at certain times. We love your applause!
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